Christmas Passed...

Well, Christmas came and left without much incident. We managed to control overstimulating situations to decrease tantrums significantly. This year, for the first time, we didn't load up our car and drive any distance to be in a house full of potential outbursts waiting to happen...smart. We let our children wake up, have breakfast (GF,CF,SF,EF, and everything else free, of course) and opened our gifts one by one. Ian loved tearing into the wrapping paper and then he was ready for the next one. Unfortunately, the new outdoor playground that JJ and I had purchased with money we had been saving for months was still sitting in boxes on the garage floor Christmas morning. We budgeted to have someone install it, but the weather had not been cooperative the days preceeding Christmas... bummer! Honestly though, I don't think Ian or Liberty noticed, mabey we should save it for Valentine's Day :-). After all of the paper tearing and clean-up, we headed to my in-laws house for lunch with all the trimmings. Grandma is sensitive to Ian's dietary restrictions and always has lots of safe foods available.... contraband is well hidden, thank you.

So now begins the part of Christmas that I had been dreading.... getting Ian to understand that it is over. He is still obsessed with filling the leftover wrapping bags with household items and junk and making Santa's sleigh out of a large box I got from the preschool. He cried yesterday when we took the over dry, fire hazzard tree outside. Ian ran to get Lucy (our houskeeper) to get help to stop me from "killing the Christmas Tree". Not fully understanding, Lucy ran outside to see what was happening only to find us removing the lights and stand to ready the tree for disposal. She couldn't stop laughing as the tears poured down his face. Sad, but funny. So now, piece by piece, I am removing decorations, wrapping paper, ornaments, ect. from our house while he is not looking. Last night, as I was sneaking a few rolls of lights out of Ian's room, I pathetically called to JJ, "catch him", as he chased me to the garage screaming. Oh well, Valentine's Day is only 6 weeks away and soon our home will be filled with all the "Love" icons and Ian will forget about Christmas until August or September.